


fist is a four letter word

by notwest



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Dirk Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Play Fighting, Word Games, Words With Friends, Wrestling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-03 04:45:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15811644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notwest/pseuds/notwest
Summary: Jake's face quirks. "App?""Yeah, app. Like, application. You know your phone can do other things right? Like, apps.""You sure do keep using that word! I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean.""You know, apps." You try to think of how to explain apps. You suddenly can't think of what apps are.What's the name of an app.Literally just name any app.He's staring at you.Oh my god.





	fist is a four letter word

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PeachBriseadh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachBriseadh/gifts).



> thanks to local dirkjake enthusiast em/papayaparty for idea jamming with me and providing big inspiration for this fic

B-O-R-E-D-O-M.

You're sitting at work, head braced by your elbow on the glass display counter, waiting for customers you know will never come. The shop is always deserted because no one goes out to get their phone repaired anymore. Everyone just buys new phones if their phones break, which they inevitably do, because that's what they were made to do.

You do get customers occasionally. Sometimes someone will come in with a broken screen, or there will be the random person who somehow hasn't heard of the shiny place made of dreams called the Apple store. Someone who's never carried around anything more advanced than a battery operated beeper who is looking for a no frills phone they can top up with minutes so that they can put out a long distance call to their grandkids. A student looking for a cheap way to make calls while on holiday in the States.

It's a shame because you're actually quite good with phones, and technology in general. You have a mind for it; you can't rest around a new piece of tech without knowing exactly how it works, which way it comes apart, and ideally, how it can come back together again.

You wish you could claim the same proclivity for people. No, people are a mystery to you, evidenced by the simple fact that it has been a good year and a half since you moved to the city and you still haven't managed to make a single friend.

Your phone chimes with a notification. _Words with Friends_. Hilarious.

Roxy has been obsessed with this game for the last few weeks, and she wouldn't stop bothering you until you downloaded it and started playing with her. You wouldn't mind playing actually, Words with Friends is fun–or, was fun, back in 2013 when it was actually popular–it's just the fact that she's atrociously bad, so astoundingly inept at this simple word game that one could almost hypothesize that it's purposeful.

Not you, though. It's a wonder; Roxy is simultaneously and single handedly the smartest person you know and the worst speller you've ever encountered.

The games, while far from riveting, are at least an easy way to keep a tether between the two of you. She's your best friend in the world, and this is the first time you've lived more than a couple of miles from each other.

You look at the word she sent.

C-A-T.

Again. You're pretty sure she makes cat every time it's at all possible to, even when it's not the most advantageous word that she can play. You consult the selection of letters you have available and make your move.

S-C-O-W-L.

You refuse to let her silliness distract you from maximizing your word scores, something she no doubt extracts far too much enjoyment from. Your word intersects vertically with her "C" and the "W" falls on a Triple Letter Score space, landing you a respectable 18 points. Nice.

The phone chimes again in your hand, you see that she's left you a message in the direct message section of the app. It's just a tongue sticking out emoji. You respond with the shades emoji. Too bad it doesn't have triangle shaped sunglasses. That would be so rad.

You are contemplating the difficulty of creating a triangle shades emoji and integrating it into your phones native keyboard app, as well as the ease with which that new emoji could appear on other people's screens when the bell over the front door jingles, and through it walks what is unequivocally the hottest person you have ever seen in your life.

As soon as he passes the threshold, his eyebrows lift as well as his hand in greeting, a grin spreading broad across his face like you guys are old friends that are coming together after all these years. For a second you blanch, anxiety worming through you at the thought that maybe you two have met before, and now you've forgotten him even though he still clearly remembers you. But surely you couldn't have forgotten a face like that. It's breathtaking.

You see him in flashes. An angular jaw, fiercely green eyes and sunlit caramel skin wrapped around six feet of wide, muscular limbs. A camo patterned green t-shirt that's nicely fitted over a broad chest, thick soled combat boots and cargo shorts.

And by shorts you do mean _shorts_.

He looks… exotic. Excessively tanned and larger than life, he looks like he just parachuted down from a helicopter flying in from some tropical storybook island.

You decide to play along, just in case he does actually know you, and give him a small nod, eying him coolly as he approaches the glass counter.

"Howdy! I seem to have gotten into a bit of a pickle with my cell phone and I was wondering if a talented and handsome chap such as yourself wouldn't mind having a gander at the girl?"

Two things become clear as you take in this attractive stranger's questions.

One, is that he certainly doesn't know you.

And the second is–

Wait _… handsome?_

Your brain skips.

You shake it off. And the second thing. Is that this might be the one customer this store was made for. He's holding out the oldest looking phone you've seen in awhile. You think it might actually be the original iPhone.  

"Sure," you reply evenly. "I can look at that for you."

You reach your hand out so he can deposit the phone into it. Though, it's not a phone as much as it is a solid, rounded brick.

"Wow," you say, temporarily forgetting to gawk at him as you turn it over in your hands. The screen is cracked in three different places, and the back is scratched to all types of hell. The phone looks like it's been sharing a very small cage with a desperately hungry racoon.

He smiles again, eyes alight with excitement. "She's a beaut, isn't she? Present from my Nanna. First phone I ever got. Works like a proper charm except I can't really take it with me when I go swimming. Or hiking. Or climbing, or dancing or anything really!" He chuckles, as if this is hilarious. "It does wonders to help me keep in contact with the chaps back home though."

Your brain catches on dancing. Those legs… Oh boy.

So he's not from here. Hmm. Like you. Things start clicking into place slowly, as you deal with what's probably the most interesting customer you've seen for the entirety of your time working at the repair store. When you ask what the problem is, he tells you that the phone keeps _going kaput_ on him after it's been on for only a few minutes, every time he turns it on.

Honestly, it's hard to focus on what he's saying sometimes because of the way you keep getting distracted by the way he's _looking at you_. Or is it just your imagination?

He's leaning fully over the counter, and way too close to you. Maybe he just has bad eyesight. You inhale and get the faint smell of sweat, burning firewood, and something sweetly spicy that reminds you a bit of candied ginger. It's incredibly appealing.

His teeth are positively gleaming, almost unnaturally so. You cross Europe off your list of potential origins. He has a beautifully soft looking head of dark, wavy hair that crawls down his face and frames his square jaw perfectly. And his eyes, _oh_. His eyes are emerald green pools that you could dive into and stay for an all expenses paid vacation, for a minimum of like, three months to life.

Closer inspection of the phone reveals it to be an iPhone 3G, also known as the second iPhone ever released, circa 2008. How does he even still have this? You thumb the on switch. The phone boots to life, albeit very slowly. Like, exceedingly slowly.

You're aware of him watching you as you watch the Apple logo turn into a Verizon logo. You very determinedly keep your eyes trained on the phone and not on this mystifyingly handsome, technologically inept stranger.

Unsurprisingly, it's not passcode protected. You run through the settings as he watches you work. You've never been more aware of your physical body before, your brain stretching in its attempt to see yourself the way this stranger does. You try to imagine seeing your fingers through his eyes. Long, knobly things, laced and ringed with scars from the countless metal parts you've sliced them carelessly across.

The phone screen goes black in the middle of one of your tests.

"Aha!" he says, and grabs the top of your hand, shaking it wildly. "There it is, that's all it does and I'm plumb sick of it!"

His fingers are calloused and strong. A minute shiver goes through you at the contact.

"Honestly," you say, pulling your hand back from his, "I think your phone is just really old. When it's on for too long, it gets overheated and shuts itself off as a protective measure."

"Ah, like a siesta in the midday sun!"

"Sure. You should think about getting a new one, there have been some amazing advancements in the world of cellular technology in the last ten years." You sweep an arm toward the display of phones on the wall behind you.

He narrows his eyes, and you swear internally. Fuck, maybe that was rude. But then a smile spreads back across his face, smoothly, like warm butter across toast, like that's its natural resting state.

"Is there anything you can do? You see, this phone in particular is very important to me, I'm sure you recall it was a present from my grandmother and I'd be sorry to see it be put to rest without giving it the proper what for. Surely those clever fingers can sort something out!"

He looks up at you bright-eyed, and you sigh. Of course you can do _something_. If it was your own phone you would probably take it apart and refit it with some updated specs, expanded RAM and storage, an updated camera, a new processor… But all that, for a decade old iPhone?

You take a deep breath. "To get this phone to work properly, I would have to completely replace every part one by one. And doing this won't be much cheaper than buying a new phone, so you know."

He shakes his head and winks. "Oh, don't fret, money is no object. You can hardly put a price on something beautiful," he says, looking you directly in the eyes.

You brain skips again. His gaze is burning into you. Isn't it?

"Okay," you agree, shaking off the feeling. "I'll have it for you in a week."

"Splendid. I'll be seeing you again so!"

He takes your hand before he leaves. His grip is warm and rough, and he shakes your entire arm, pumping enthusiastically.

"Oh, how rude of me, the name is English. Jake for short." He smiles at you again and you've spent enough time around him at this point that it reads like a punch to the groin.

"Dirk Strider," you say.

"I'll be seeing you, Dirk Strider. Take good care of her for me, will you?"

You nod, and he gives you a salute. Then you watch him leave, or more specifically, you watch his ass leave, mind spinning, until the jingling above the door goes silent.

 _What_.

 

* * *

 

 

There's still a good three hours before the end of your shift, so you decide to get to work. You boot it up again, and while you wait you check your own phone for messages. There are seven Words With Friends notifications from Roxy. You smile, despite yourself, and open the app.

M-I-L-K.

So the cat theme persists. You can begrudgingly admit that this move wasn't half bad, giving her 21 points, but you're still leading by over 100.  

P-E-N-S-I-V-E.

When Jake's phone finally loads up, you decide to do him a favor–well, only partially for him and mostly to soothe your own anxiety–and do a manual backup of his data onto a hard drive. It's not exactly a standard move but it's also not like you have a hearty queue of other projects to be working on anyway.

Your mind stumbles to a halt before a thought you shouldn't have. No, you aren't going to look through his stuff. Absolutely not. Where, you ask, is the sacred trust between cellular repair man and loyal customer? This is practically some HIPAA level shit here.

You sit in denial for a total of two minutes before clicking into the home screen.

You could laugh.

In what is undoubtedly the original configuration of the phone, Jake doesn't have any non-native apps downloaded to his phone at all. The Safari browser is devoid of bookmarks, open tabs or history, and you somehow don't think he's the kind of person who understands, let alone feels the compulsion to clear cookies.

You decide not to open the texting application. You are surprised to find that you do have some semblance of a moral code after all.

You open the photos app. Holy shit. You're hit like a physical blow with a metric fuckton of Jake's selfies, all featuring that dazzling, compelling smile in front of about one hundred different backdrops. A lot of them have trees or mountains or running water in the distance, and you think back to what he said about hiking. And dancing.

You scroll and you scroll and you scroll. There are _so_ many pictures. They aren't all selfies either, there are plenty of pictures of food and small animals. There's also a good amount of ones that display Jake with his arms around different people. A lot of kids, you note. Maybe he's a teacher?

You see a photo of him and an older woman with rounded glasses and a small smile who he squeezes enthusiastically. You wonder if that's his grandmother.

Man, this is creepy.

You close the photo app quickly, chastising yourself. That was super uncool. Not to mention completely unprofessional.

You finish the work on the phone that night. Because of your meticulous stock, you have the exact spare parts around the shop that you need to complete the repairs. You rebuild the phone into a Frankensteinian creation, and when you're done you think it even rivals the speed of your own.

You drag yourself home well after the hours of your shift have ended, utterly wrecked. You collapse into your own bed and have dreams painted with bold strokes of green.

 

* * *

 

The week passes slowly. Every day you pick up Jake's phone and test it out. Everyday it still works, just like it did the day before.

On Friday night, you're bouncing your leg and waiting for Jake English. It's been exactly one week. Jake's phone is sitting on the workbench directly behind you, you've checked several times to make sure it's still there.

The minutes pass. You and Roxy exchange a couple of words. Your game with her is almost over. You're beating her by nearly 300 points now.

Finally you see him through the glass window of the store. He smiles as he enters and greets you like an old friend. Or, you guess, like he greets everyone. He's wearing the exact same outfit as last time, which–as far as you're concerned–is far from disappointing.

"Hiya again! I was hoping you hadn't closed up shop just yet, and here you are looking as dapper as ever! Sorry I'm a little bit late I got a bit held up in the tubes, you know how it is to navigate those blasted metal snakes every day!"

You give him a small nod before turning around to place the phone on the counter and get it booted up. He comes over and leans over the counter just like last week, far too close and looking at you with those eyes like he wants to melt you down.

"Good as new," you say. "Or, good as old. Really old. Honestly, this phone is so old it should be sitting me on its knee and telling me how it used to play stickball and go to the soda fountain."

He laughs at that, way louder and way longer than the joke warranted. You refrain from cringing.

"I know my phone isn't the snappiest doodad in the bunch, but it does what I need it to do, surely there's respect in that?"

"Yeah. But there's also respect in being able to run more than one app at a time."

His face quirks. "App?"

"Yeah, app. Like, application. You know your phone can do other things right? Like, apps."

"You sure do keep using that word! I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean."

"You know, apps." You try to think of how to explain apps. You suddenly can't think of what apps are.

What's the name of an app.

Literally just name any app.

He's staring at you.

 _Oh my god_.

Your own phone that was sitting on the counter pings with a Words With Friends notification. Roxy has sent you a word.

A-W-K-W-A-R-D.

Like this, you say hastily, dragging your phone closer to show him. You tap the notification and pull up the game. "This is Words With Friends. It's basically a virtual Scrabble game that you play online against other people."

The corners of his mouth lift in delight. "Oh wonderful! So by apps you mean games! Digital sport!

You snort. "Yeah sure, games. I mean, you can do other things too. Like uh."

Once again you are drawing blank. Jake doesn't notice, his eyes still excitedly roaming the colorful tiles spread across the lit screen. Finally he looks up at you, his face shifting into something more serious. "I fancy a fellow who likes words."

His eyes sear into your skin and your face goes hot. Holy shit. Pull it together. You clear your throat and eye him levelly, squashing your nerves down enough to ask, "Is that a challenge, Jake English?"

He grins, baring all of his teeth. "You bet your biscuits it is, mister Strider!"

You lean back, crossing your arms like they can hide the fireworks show that is now your gut. "Well. I guess we better get you set up, then."

You walk him through installing the app and he creates an account with the handle golgothasTerror. You start a game with yourself, TimaeusTestified. Jake gets the first move. Sucker.

Once it's done you close the application, and then he's shaking your entire arm again.

"Dirk, I can't thank you enough! You're my knight in shining armour behind that case!"

"You're welcome. Feel free to stop in again if you have any other issues. And good luck."

"I'll be seeing you!"

You can't quite get over the way he smiles at you, like he wants to eat you alive.

 

* * *

 

Not ten minutes after he leaves the store, Jake sends you a word.

You pause while pulling down the front gate to check your phone, and end up staring at the notification with a giddy smile plastered on your face.

E-A-T.

You stand agonizing over your move for a few minutes, before sending something back.

C-H-E-E-R-S.

You can't quite wipe the smile off your face the entire train ride home; it persists even as you get ready for the night. It's like you're sticking your head out the window of a moving car, you can almost sense the hair whipping across your face, feel the exhilaration.

Let the digital sport begin.

 

* * *

 

You quickly find out that Jake is kind of bad at this game. It's only four rounds in and he's already dragging behind you by over 150 points. You're at home in bed, considering at the board and genuinely wondering if this guy is actually somehow worse than Roxy when you notice something. Jake's words have all been simple, mostly four letters, and barely did they ever go above ten points.

Separately, they seem basic and almost thoughtlessly played.

Together, they tell a different story.

M-A-R-K.

H-O-T.

T-A-R-T.

B-I-T-E.

Your body tenses around a realization.

Jake English is flirting with you through this application.

You think for a second, as your heart rate increases, and then check your tiles to see what you can come up with to test this theory. A few minutes later, you hold your breath and hit send.

S-A-U-C-Y.

When your phone pings again 15 minutes later, your stomach jumps when you realize that there's a direct message, rather than a another word waiting for you from Jake.

> GT: Good one chum! :D

Your body thrums with excitement. You push the covers away, suddenly feeling warm.

> TT: Thank you.

From there, you fall into talking to Jake through direct messages while you send words back and forth. He sticks with the flirty theme, sending over S-N-A-C-K, T-E-M-P-T, M-A-T-E, and P-U-S-H.

Some of them are a reach, granted, but you are working with randomly distributed letter tiles, after all.

You contribute every so often, but only when it won't wreck havoc on your score.

Through conversation you learn that Jake is originally from Hawaii, but moved here almost year ago, "for the adventure". He works at a children's camp just outside the city, focused on outdoor education. He tells you that the phone store is only a short walk from his house and that he'd seen it before in passing. You wonder exactly how close to you he lives, and just how many times he's walked past the store. You wonder if he's ever looked in and seen you hunched over and tinkering with old phone parts or half snoozing into the crook of your arm.

You tell him about growing up in the outer suburbs, about Roxy, about your aspirations to become a software developer and your move out to Houston to get closer to the tech opportunities of the city.

A few weeks pass. You and Jake finish a game almost everyday, and after the first one ends it's pretty evident that Jake was intentionally playing badly just to use evocative words. Once the gambit is up, the games between you become delightedly more intense, with you and he much closer in scores than you've ever managed with anyone else. Your conversations grow too. When the small talk is exhausted, you fall into chatter about anything and everything: his love of movies and comic books, your love of philosophy and manga, places you both have traveled, places you want to travel, music, books, pop culture, the list goes on.

Your narrow scope of interaction with Jake consumes you. In the mornings, you wake up and immediately check your phone. You neglect your side projects throughout the day to keep chatting with him. You fall asleep late nights with his chat window still open, phone dangling from a limp wristed hand.

 

* * *

 

You have to consciously force yourself to do anything that's not texting Jake. You give yourself a project, and install a new operating system on your phone, one of your own design.

Once the new system is installed and everything looks good, you're bored again. A few hours later, you find yourself drumming your fingers on the counter, waiting for a notification from Jake. He usually lets you know if he's about to step away from his phone for more than a few minutes these days, usually it has to do with some kind of camp emergency, so the lack of contact from him is pretty unusual.

No word comes all day. You tell yourself not to freak out about this. You fail at not freaking out about this.

Finally, you send him a message.

> TT: Yo, English. It's your turn.  
>  TT: Don't make me use the "nudge" button on you, that would be extremely embarrassing for both of us.

You stare expectantly at your phone.

_Come on English, send me a word already._

Nada. The night passes with no word from Jake at all and you curse yourself. Maybe there was a real emergency. Why hadn't you gotten his real phone number by now? Instead you'd been texting through a game for weeks. It was ridiculous.

Or maybe he didn't want to play with you. Or talk to you anymore. You cycle through some of the last things you'd talked about. Your shitty job. Your shitty family. Your general lack of luster for life at the moment. You, you, you. You break out in a cold sweat in the middle of backreading your latest conversation. There had been an awful lot of Dirk Strider discussion and not a lot of Jake English contributions. Looking back, you see his replies as what they are: short, uninterested _hmm_ s, and _wow_ s, like placating green pepper ground hastily into your orange cream of bullshit soup.

Even as you chastise yourself for never asking for his phone number, you realize he hadn't offered it up either.

The next day passes in a gray blur. You don't get even get any messages from Roxy. The good news is that it's a Friday, so at least you have all weekend to stew in your own self loathing.

You spend the weekend lain out out on your couch in various states of existentialism. What are you doing with your life? And why are you so lonely that the second some random stranger showed interest in you, you had dug your claws into him so hard that he bled? You probably scared Jake away for good.

Maybe it was for the best. You destroy everything you touch, poison it, like a single drop of ink into clear water. It's why you have no friends. It's why people are generally better off without you.

You don't even message Roxy, and then you feel shitty about that too. It's a small miracle she deems it necessary to even interact with you at all. You suppose that's the plague of being friends with someone from childhood. Whatever the reason though, you selfishly can't help but be thankful for her companionship.

 

* * *

 

When Monday rolls around you greet it reluctantly. Every minute that passes feels dragging, like you're pulling yourself through this thick black muck that sucks at your legs and doesn't want to let you move on.

Your will to slog through the resistance is very fleeting, but you manage to make it into work. The only silver lining is that you know you can depend on the store to be empty of customers, just like it always is.

Once you're punched in you get to work installing an update on your new operating system to distract yourself. To your chagrin, there were more than a couple of bugs with the first one. The trials and tribulations of self-testing your own software. You watch the progress bar slowly fill with the update while trying and failing to not think about Jake.

You hear him before you see him.

"STRIDER!"

Jake bursts in the door with all the force of a hurricane, hair windswept and eyes gleaming. He's holding a shopping bag and wearing his typical tropical safari explorer outfit, which you've come to learn is actually his camp counselor uniform.

You compose your face, quickly turning your mask of surprise into something more cool and collected.

"Jake. Fancy seeing you here."

He marches over to the counter, eyes trained on you. "Don't play coy with me mister! I've been hung up waiting for your response for three days now, what the devilfucking dickens gives!"

Your facade snaps.

"What the fuck are you talking about? I've been waiting for a word from you since Friday."

The upset on Jake's face clears, and then twists into something more frustrated. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and slams it down on the counter. "Confound this thing! It must not have received your latest message!"

Relief drifts over you like a cool ocean breeze. So Jake hasn't been ignoring you. It was just his phone malfunctioning. Because it's an old piece of shit.

That you repaired.

Guilt flares through you as you begin a mental list of all the things you could have done wrong while fixing Jake's phone. "Let me have a look at it," you say.

You open the phone and poke around the menus. Everything looks fine so far. You decide to open the Words With Friends app, just in case it was some error with the settings.

Your game with Jake is the only active game on his phone. Except… wait. The game is listed under the "Their Move" category. Their move, meaning your move.

Waiting for… But you played a word last. You are suddenly unsure of everything. You double check Jake's last word and pull out your own phone. The loading bar for the update has finished, and you see that the Words app has a notification badge next to it. You open it, and sure as anything, Jake's latest word is sitting in the "Your Move" section, along with 5 missed direct messages. There's also a word from Roxy, as well as 15 new messages. You stare at the two words unbelievingly.

Y-O-U.

S-U-C-K.

Fuck. You pointedly don't unpack the feelings they incite. This is not a coincidence. Your best guess is that one of those bugs with your OS caused the Words with Friends app to malfunction temporarily.

And you to completely cockblock yourself.

You lift your head back to face Jake, who has been watching you intently.

"Your phone works fine. I was installing a new operating system for my phone and I think it froze up my Words app which is why I didn't get any of your messages."

Jake slams his phone down onto the counter again. "Aha! This is why I don't trust these metal things! Messages zipping up willy-nilly into the doggone air and if they get lost, we're none the wiser!"

You snort, leaning in on the counter with your elbows. It feels good to be this close to him again. "And what would you propose as an alternate method for modern communication then?"

"I say we put our fists where our mouths are, sir! In my day we fought like men!"

" _In my day_. Aren't you like, two years younger than me?"

Jake chuckles darkly. "I think, mister Strider, that you are intentionally obfuscating my point."

"I'm not sure I am. But okay, fists where our mouths are. So, are you asking me to fight you, or…"

Jake laughs again, then pinches his chin between two fingers in consideration.

"Well, I do enjoy a good round of fisticuffs as much as the next red-blooded lad. But actually, I was thinking we could do something a little more in your element."

He reaches down somewhere below the counter and pulls up a long, red, rectangular box. A very familiar looking long, red, rectangular box.

It's fucking _Scrabble_.

He looks at you wearing nothing short of a smirk. "I was thinking we put up a game at my place, man to man, as they say. We can do it tonight at eight perhaps? That is, if you're not up to your knees in public cellular assistance?"

You take an exaggerated look around the store, swiveling your entire head.

"I think it'll be just fine."

He winks at you and looks down, typing something into his phone, just as yours lights up with a Words notification from Jake. It's an address, presumably his.

It's official. Jake is inviting you to his house after dark.

He pockets his phone, standing up fully. "Splendid! I'll see you at mine then."

"See ya."

He leaves with a flourish, swinging his shopping bag back and forth on his arms, whistling.

You smile. You can't help yourself.

You don't bother sending Jake any more words. Something tells you you're going to need all your brainpower tonight.

 

* * *

 

Jake's house is less than a five minute walk from the store. Incredible. Before you can even lift your fist to knock he flings the door wide open, waving enthusiastically.  

"Dirk! It's such a treat to see you away from that glass counter at last! Shoes off, rules of the abode if you don't mind!"

"Yeah, well." You step inside, toeing off your sneakers on the mat by the door. "Thanks for the invite."

He walks into the house, still wearing the same clothes from earlier. You close the door behind you, fumbling a bit with the lock. Once you get it, Jake's disappeared from view. The entrance hall is short, and emerges into a wide living space. There's two comfortable but worn looking couches, two wide windows, and a central coffee table with the Scrabble game already sitting on it, unopened. The entire room is bathed in a warm yellow light, and you can smell those distinct Jake smells: burning wood, sweet ginger and something sharper, like oak sap.

But you don't notice that any of that at first. What you notice is that along the walls, along every wall, sits the largest comic book collection you have ever seen. Large action movie posters are framed and hung in between the rows of comics. Avatar, The Mummy, Indiana Jones, Ghost Rider, Tomb Raider… the list goes on.

"Fancy a stiff one?"

You jump and spin around, face heating. Jake is standing in the living room, holding a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

"Sorry, I was…" You gesture vaguely at the walls.

He laughs. "Oh, do you like my comics? My gran encouraged me to be quite the collector. I am very much enamoured by the ways of the hero, their crazy adventures, loyal companions, and of course the dashing action sequences. What a doozy!"

"It's… it's pretty indescribable," you finally manage to say, tearing your eyes from the colorfully adorned walls.

"Thank you! I try to bring in a couple of issues to work every day for the buckaroos. They enjoy reading with along with me."

"That's really nice. And yeah, I'll take that drink."

"Please," he says, gesturing to the couch, "Have a seat, make yourself comfortable. And put those dexterous digits to work opening that game, will you?"

You sit down and get to work opening the game while Jake pours two drinks. Just as you finish setting it up on the table, he sets down two glasses of amber colored liquid and sits on the couch opposite yours.

You're not the biggest drinker, but you will imbibe on occasion. You think this definitely qualifies as an occasion.

You sort out your tiles and go first. It's a little quiet, and you are intensely aware that at this point, more of your relationship has been conducted online than it has in person.

B-R-E-A-T-H.

"So," Jake says, leaning forward with both arms laid out across his knees, "What got you into the business of word slinging in the first place? I'm quite eager to know the origins of that talented tongue and even more so to discover all of its uses."

Your face heats. Holy shit. You take a slow, careful sip your drink in what is definitely a transparent stalling mechanism. Jake places his first tiles with a small devious smile playing across his lips.

H-E-A-T-E-D.

"Well, I've always liked books," you say. "Words were my escape from an otherwise non-titillating childhood. I had very few friends to keep me company, and fewer family members."

"Aw shucks, I dread the thought of a wee Dirk going without a fitting companion!"

"I made do."

"I get the sense that you're the resourceful type."

"You could say that." You break eye contact to lay down another word. "What about you, did you have a lot of friends growing up?"

I-N-Q-U-I-R-E.

"You could say that. I grew up on a glorious island, where small animals and flora were my friends abundant. I spent a lot of time alone during the day, out exploring, seeing what there was to see and learning a lot of valuable lessons along the way. I think it's why I was so compelled to teach the young tots what I do. Every lad and lass should have a healthy appreciation for the outdoors. Nothing humbles a fellow like a little dirt on his boots!"

He chuckles and leans forward to make another move.

R-E-A-L-I-Z-E.

"And what about now?" you ask. "Are you happy with your the caliber of your adventures here in Houston?"

Jake looks at you over his glasses, considering. "I would say that I've found a merry way or two to keep myself entertained."

You narrow your eyes, suppressing your smile. "I see."

"What about yourself?" he asks. "Was the move out to the big city everything you dreamed it would be all those years ago?"

"Well, it's only been a year so far. But..." You trail off, thinking. "I think it is. I'm certainly gathering a finer... appreciation for this place. There are so many things to discover. I'm still finding new things in the neighborhoods I thought I knew, even some hidden gems that have turned out to be just around the corner."

Unlike you, he makes no attempt to hide his grin. You look away, placing tiles for a new word on the board.

E-M-E-R-A-L-D.

The tension eases after that. Playing and conversation flow as easily as the whiskey in your glasses.

You take another sip of your drink. You feel nice. A warmth is spreading through your body and you want to dive into it, soaking in the comfort and the blissed feeling.

The game itself becomes mostly a backdrop, clearly no longer what the evening is about. You do however, insist on stopping several times to look up some of Jake's more ridiculous words in the official Scrabble dictionary app you downloaded to your phone.

 

* * *

 

"What the fuck is a scrum?"

Jake clucks his tongue and calls you dastardly, but you have to check. You just have to.

You're aware of his eyes on you as you continue to sip your drink, how they follow the movement of your body when you reach for your phone on the coffee table.

Jake himself sits back with an easy grin, his legs spread in a way that would make anyone on the train complain about manspreading. He eyes you once again over his glasses as you consult the app, eyes twinkling.

You feel hot. Is it hot?

"Scrum. A usually brief and disorderly struggle or fight."

"There we are! See Dirk, I don't know why you insist on doubting all my words!"

"Because they are actual nonsense."

He just laughs and lets out a sigh, looking off into some distance. "You know, it's been a wolf's cry since I had a good round of fisticuffs."

"Fighting? You were serious about that."

"Yes! Absolutely there's nothing better a good scrum!"

"I can name at least twenty things."

His eyebrows lift and he sits up. "Can you?"

Oh fuck. Jake's green eyes are piercing through you, and not for the first time since you've met him, it's like you've forgotten the entirety of english language.

"Um, reading, for one," you start.

He huffs, sitting back again. "Well I suppose even a dung beetle with their antennae sliced off could have sensed that one coming."

You glare at him. "If you'll excuse me, I am in the middle of trouncing you with my words."

He lifts his hands up in the air. The one with the drink ends up in front of his face and he takes a sip. "Righto. Carry on."

"Going on picnics, watching Judge Judy, eating a Cuban panini, programming, looking at pictures of the Mona Lisa online, drawing, writing, fine dining, fixing phones, conversing about literally any topic, digging through actual garbage, getting caught in the rain without an umbrella–what?"

Jake is laughing hard, doubled over with one hand on his stomach and one hand stuck out in front of him, signaling you to stop your impeccable list making.

Damn, you had a few more really good ones in there.

He finally straightens up, his hearty laugh subsiding into a subdued chuckle. "Much like in your board games, a man knows when he should admit defeat. However, I would implore you to still consider the joys of wholesome physical combat."

It's your turn to lean back. "Oh, I know the joys of physical combat."

"Do you?" His eyes snap to yours. There's an electric energy in the air, like a night filled with static just before a lightning strike. "I'd like to see what you've got."

"Are proposing we start a private fight club in your apartment?"

"Well, what would be your preferred evening activity?"

Your face threatens to flush at the clear mental image of your prefered evening activity with Jake English. And sure you can fight, but fighting him? Sounds intense as fuck. You look at his arms. They're the width of mini watermelons.

His eyes flash excitedly. "How about this, I propose a friendly competition. If I win this word battle, we fight. If you win, we do whatever you like instead."

"Deal," you say too quickly.

A moment passes where you're just staring at him. You wonder if he realizes that both outcomes would be in your favor.

Jake leans into the couch once again, throwing an arm casually over the back. "Dirk," he says. "I believe it's your move."

The scores are nearly tied up at this point, you've been keeping track on a napkin at the edge of the table.

You focus in on the letters you have left. There are only about two moves till the end of the game, so these last words have to count.

You think long and hard before placing your tiles.

 

* * *

 

Jake wins the game. You wear a tiny smile, lifting your hands meekly up in defeat. All while your heart thrums at the thought of what's going to happen. Jake looks up at you and grins. You can feel the whiskey flowing warmly over you, coating your skin like a thin blanket and giving everything a feathery soft edge.

Oh boy.

You can admit to yourself that you're nervous. In a few minutes Jake's going to putting those calloused, strong looking hands on you. Admittedly not in the way you've been fantasizing about for three weeks now, but still. You gotta take what you can get.

"Don't look so worried there, Strider."

"Oh. I'm not worried."

Jake stands and walks slowly to the edge of the room. There's probably a six foot clearing between him and the back of the first couch, framed by a thin green carpet. "Remember, all you have to do is to tap out if anything gets too much. You won't find any judgements here, pal."

You stand and follow him, standing with your back to the far couch, suddenly extremely thankful to feel the carpeted floor against your socked feet.

You've never wrestled before, it's true, but you do know how to fight. Your Bro wasn't one to leave you without a self-defense class… or twenty. Of his own design. Yeah.

You raise your arms up into a defensive position. Jake bends his knees at the other side of the room and winks.

And then he's coming at you.

 

* * *

 

Okay so, you may have exaggerated your own combat prowess. Or maybe you just didn't care, desperate as you were to have Jake's body against your own.

He is a force. Jake slams into you without holding back, and your body hits the back of the couch and crumples to the ground immediately under his. It would be embarrassing, except you're too busy being completely and irrationally turned on by this thrashing.

No sword. That means fists. Now that's a four letter word. His body is hot over yours, and you lift your knee up sharply, successfully hitting him in the soft flesh of his abdomen. He grunts and rolls over onto his knees, eyes glinting.

"Oho, so you _are_ here to play!"

You lift yourself up, and run toward him. You don't really have a plan and that quickly turns into a mistake as he wraps two large hands around your waist and lifts you into the air like a box of foam peanuts. You yell and thrash in his grip, until he throws his body down backwards, slamming both of you onto the ground.

Your upper back protests painfully. Were you just suplexed? You try and fail at not finding this insanely hot. Honestly you think you might be sporting a half chub.

No one moves for a second. "Had enough, Strider?" Jake sings. What the fuck, he doesn't even sound out of breath.

You blow a puff of air. "Not even close."

Your head is spinning in more ways than one. You're panting at least, trying to catch your breath, while Jake is already getting back up on his feet. Holy shit. Picking yourself up by your arms, you swing one of your legs out to swipe underneath his, hoping to catch him off balance. It sort of works and sort of doesn't. He teeters a bit, but doesn't fall. What he does do though, is reach down, grab you by your exposed ankle, and yank you bodily towards him.

You're sliding across the floor, hands grabbing at the rug fruitlessly for purchase, and your body feels like it's on fire.

Though, it could just be rug burn.

Before he can get you all the way toward him, you kick with all your might and manage to loosen your ankle enough to scramble away. Feeling not unlike some sort of wild beast's prey, you throw yourself sloppily over the nearest couch and slam into the coffee table. There's a blunted pain where the wood connects with your chest. Ouch.

Jake follows quickly, charging after you like an advancing bull. Fuck.

Pretty desperately you reach out, grab the scrabble board off the table, and fling it at him. He laughs and tries to dodge as the pieces hit him in the face and scatter across the room, completely caught off guard. He's distracted enough where you can actually move away, slinking in a crouch toward the second couch now, to regroup.

Yeah, it's not your finest moment.

"Looks like your words won't save you now, Strider," Jake says, and you can hear the glee in his voice.

You have a moment of clarity. You focus on your goal. You've gotta pin him. Somehow you have to pin him to the ground. You decide to commit fully to the outcome, despite the fact that you really don't see it happening, considering the fact that Jake's body is the size of a small bear's, and yours is closer in physical make up to fucking Gumby.

Jake looks over at you with suddenly hungry eyes and you freeze, realizing that at some point your glasses have fallen off your face. Fuck. Your mind launches you away from the present and anxiety smacks you in the chest way harder than Jake has tonight. You tell yourself to shake it off. Focus on the goal.

Cementing your will, once again you launch yourself at him. You launch yourself over the coffee table and couch and straight towards where Jake is standing.

What you don't have in physical strength, you know you can at least make up for in dexterity. You might not be able to land many blows, but you can dodge and run with the best of them.

You go barrelling straight into his chest and wow, this was a bad idea. It's like smacking into actual iron. Sharp pain blooms from your chest and Jake's arms immediately snap closed around you like a bear trap, pressing you fully against him. The heat in your groin is back, and he's breathing in warm heavy pants against your face. You inhale and your nostrils flood with that burning wood and spicy sweet smell. It's intoxicating.

One of his hands travels up to your neck, gripping it tightly. Jesus Christ, this should not be as hot as it is. His eyes are flashing emerald fire, lips curled up into a devilish grin. If he keeps holding you like this, in a few moments he is going to feel exactly how much you are enjoying this fight.

"Would you like to tap out, Strider?" he asks.

You push against his sides weakly with your arms. Yeah, there's absolutely nothing you can do at this point. He's practically dangling you by your throat. You've never been more turned on in your life, probably.

Okay, so breathing is not exactly a thing right now. You're running out of air. Jake's not going to strangle you, right? You should probably do something, just in case.

One last, pretty drastic move occurs to you. You open your mouth, like you're going to answer his question but then bash the hard plate of your forehead into the space between his eyes as hard as you can. You couldn't get much leverage, since his hand was fully around your throat but he does yelp and let you go, and then you take advantage of his temporary lack of focus to throw a quick, clumsy jab to his gut. It works, this time he goes down like a falling shelf of snow and you quickly settle yourself on top of him, straddling his hips and digging your own arm into the thick flesh of his neck.

Now this is a position. You lean over him, breathing heavily.

He eyes you steadily for a moment, and then the biggest smile crosses his face. He extends his arm slowly, and taps three times on the floor without breaking eye contact with you.

"Bullshit," you spit. "You can totally get up."

"Mister Strider, I'm afraid I've been bested by you in combat. What more can I say."

"You can say that you're full of shit and hit me again."

"I can't do that. You've won, fair and square."

 _Fair and square_ your ass.

Your ass, which is currently pressing against Jake English's crotch. The large, hard lump in Jake English's crotch.

_Oh._

The fight is over.

"Well then," you say, pulling your arm back from his neck, "I guess it's time I claim my prize."

His eyes are burning into yours. "I suppose it is," he says, and he's finally breathless.

You kiss him fiercely, pressing your chests together and reaching your hands up to tangle in his hair. You might not have actually won either battle, but it sure feels like you did. It feels like the first cold sip of water on a hot day, relieving and perfect in its quench.

He groans into your mouth. "Dirk…"

You grind your hips down into his wantonly. Fuck everything if you guys aren't going to fuck like animals on this floor right now.

You devour his sounds, working yourself up into a frenzy by frotting furiously against his crotch. It's uncool as shit, but you're so pent up from all this touching and scrumming and _Jake,_ you can't exactly help yourself.

"Dirk!" Jake's voice breaks through your sex-crazed haze. He lifts his arms, grabs both of yours and flips you both over. Now his knees are between your legs, and he sits back on his haunches to regard you.

"You've gotta slow down there or you'll open all your presents before Christmas morning itself!"

That was a dumb way to phrase it but you can admit he's right. You rest your head against the rug, panting and lain before his gaze. The thought makes you flush. His eyes rove up and down your form shamelessly, and he leans forward to inch his fingers underneath your shirt and slide them hotly against your sweat-slicked skin. You flex your back, embarrassingly eager to be touched. It feels good, it all feels so good.

He whistles gently. "What did I do to deserve you," he says, just as soft.

A thought hits you like a boomerang to the face, pulling you out of the hazy moment and into the high contrast of reality. You reject it, but it seeps into the edges of your vision.

"Nothing really. In fact, you pretty much just randomly came into my store one day."

"Well then," he sighs. "What a fair lick of a rabbit's foot that was for me."

Your mind is rattling like a pot boiling over. You feel hot, and it's not in the good, sexy way anymore.

"Jake, wait," you start. No, no. You tell yourself not to dump your fucking insecurities on him, but yeah, that pot? The lid has just blown clear off. "I'm not sure what you want from me "

His eyebrows quirk, hands pausing in their massage of your sides. "Well… I'd say this is a fairly good start," he says.

"I just mean…" You take a deep breath. Something inside you stings, and it's not any the injuries you got tonight. "You've put up with my bullshit for long enough. I want to make sure you still want to–if you think it was all worth it?

Jake looks at you in bewilderment. "What?"

You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to regroup your thoughts. It's hard, when your mind is attacking you with a million and one reasons you are the actual worst human alive. "I mean our last conversations, even before you–I, disappeared, I was insufferable! I was always fucking flooding the chat with my problems and my life and my bullshit! I mean, once I looked back, I wasn't surprised that I hadn't heard from you that weekend."

You swallow against the lump in your throat at the admission. Your mind is a Vitamix of feelings that are all crashing and chipping at each other painfully, embarrassment and shame and fear and self loathing and _fuck_.

Why couldn't you have had your breakdown after you guys had sex?  

Jake opens his mouth, eyebrows furrowed. "First of all mister, I enjoy listening to your problems! I mean not to say I enjoy the fact that you have problems but–"

"–I just mean, what if you had known about apps already then we would have never…"

You heart lurches. Why are you doing this to yourself? Your boner is so far gone it's said goodbye to all its friends and family and moved across the country to start a new acting career in LA.

Jake looks at you with a look that can only be described as scolding.

"By the lord Dirk, now you've gone and forced my hand! It wasn't a coincidence we got to talking!"

Huh?

"Huh?"

He drags one large hand down his face. When he speaks, his voice is patiently gentle. "Pet, of course I know what apps are. I work with children."

Your mind refuses to process his words.

"You what?"

"I work with wth children, at my camp. They're always going off about the newest gosh darned apps and of course, dropping their phones. Funny enough, we actually have a gentleman who can fix them for us right on campus."

"You have…" Your brain is scrambling to keep up.

"I came to you and asked you to download that app for me because I think–" He leans forward and grabs both your hands, pulling you up into a sitting position. He presses his thumbs into both palms, kneading soothing circles. Your noses are almost touching and you force yourself to look into his eyes. "–You are a bloody wonder, mister Strider," he finishes.

You blush, speechless, your mind finally processing the information.

"Heavens to Betsy, I walked by the store for an entire year before I could work up the gumption even to walk through the doorway." His eyes flick downward. "When my phone started malfunctioning it was the perfect reason, my feet were on my way to see you before my noggin could follow suit. You… you always looked like some caged bird holed up in there. This delicate thing of unparalleled beauty."

You were not prepared or expecting to hear any of this. It's like he's put you under a heating element. Like you're a tray of home-baked macaroni and cheese sitting pretty at the eternal embarrassment buffet.

"Okay, okay, shut up," is all you can say. You would cover your face, but he's still holding onto your wrists securely.

"What?" he says, smiling now. "You of all things deserve more than a smidgen of praise! I know you like words, so how about if I give you some words that I've been thinking since the very first time I saw you."

He lets go of your wrists then, moving his hands down to lift your shirt and expose your abdomen. He places one hand gently on your chest, pushing you backward and you go gratefully, happy to relinquish eye contact. He leans over you once more, kissing your skin gently and you wiggle in his grip.

"Beautiful."

He kisses just above the last one, lifting your shirt up to reveal more skin.

"Gorgeous."

Kiss.

"Miraculous."

Lift.

"Handsome."

Kiss.

"Stunning."

Lift.

When he mouths over your nipples you forcibly shut the window on your thoughts. Your face is red and your cock is hard under his attention and you definitely can't take much more of this.

You shake your head, digging the heels of your palms into your eyes. "Absolutely no, stop it, Jake fuck–"

"I daresay I won't!" he says. "I want to worship you like you deserve. You are a deity, Dirk. Like Adonis himself, sent down to Earth from another plane of creation."

He's made his way up to your collarbones now, and temporarily stops speaking to suck into your neck and you gasp, hips bucking up against him. Fuck.

It's enough to temporarily ease the buzzing in your mind. Your body is singing in all the places it was banged up earlier. It's a heady mix of pleasure and pain and _Jake_ and you can't get anywhere close to enough.

You almost laugh as you distantly register the feeling of Scrabble tiles pressing into your back, but your brain re-prioritizes. Nothing matters now except getting as much of Jake's skin against yours as you can.

Jakes lips find yours again, and you smooth your arms down his back, pressing him close.

"You're one to talk," you say.

He hums into your mouth. "Whatever do you mean?"

"You walk around in a sexy male Lara Croft Halloween costume."

He laughs and you feel his chest rumble against your own. "Oh, I adore Tomb Raider," he says. "It's one of my absolute favorites."

You point your eyeballs toward the spot you know the Tomb Raider movie poster is hanging. "Yeah, I know."

He goes to respond but you kiss him again. Words aren't necessary anymore. You bring your hands up his sides, dragging his camo shirt up with them.

He grabs the shirt from you one handed pulling it the rest of the way up and over his head.

You can't believe that he tricked you still. The thought makes you feel hot all over. Once his shirt is off, Jake leans back over and claims your mouth once more, sweeping his tongue across yours in a way that sends fireworks up down your spine. Your cock is achingly hard, and you press it up into his hard on through his pants.

You use the reserves of your strength to push Jake away from you by the shoulders and he rolls, too easily, over onto his back. You grab hold of his belt buckle. You only feel slightly self conscious, but the way Jake is looking at you like he wants to eat you alive is enough to assuage your anxieties.

You flick the buckle open and shuck down his pants as quickly as you can. It still feels awkward though, so of course your mouth decides to open of its own accord. "Do you always bring young virile repair men back to your house for a casual night of scrabble, fist fighting and sex?"

He laughs, faltering slightly as you also pull down his underwear; his dick is freed from his pants and falls into your line of vision.

"Not at all, I certainly wouldn't say I make this a regular extracurricular activi– _oh._ "

You bend your head down and flick your tongue against the head of his cock.

Oh, that's good. You knew it would be from the second you saw it. Your thoughts very much parallelled the reality of seeing Jake for the first time, namely that this is the _nicest_ dick you've ever seen. Mouthwatering, even.

He groans as you run your tongue along the ridge just under the fleshy head, taking in the salty sweat taste that by all non-sexual accounts should probably be gross, but just makes your own dick throb harder in your jeans.

"Oh Dirk, pet…"

You hum at him, and encase the entire head into your mouth with a good hard suck. Blowing is actually one of the skills you're pretty confident in. You've always leaned heavily into your oral fixation; why bother denying yourself the things you want? If they're clean and willing, you're almost always on board.

Jake moans, dragging one fist into your hair. You internally cringe before swatting the voices in your head down. This is just par for the course. Sexy sex involves hair pulling.

Plus, you know your hair was already entirely fucked from the little tile war you two had earlier. Rest in peace, friend.

You go into a kind of cock sucking trance, grabbing him by the thighs and bobbing your head eagerly, making sure to get it nice and wet, so your lips glide nicely up and down his dick, saliva dropping down in thick strings whenever you pull up for air.

God, you love it.

Jake is cursing above you, saying more nonsense words but all you can hear is the sweet rush in your ears and all you can feel is the head of his dick hitting the back of your throat. Fuck, it's so fucking good.

You suck and slobber and it's pretty messy and probably not attractive at all but you're lost in the feel of it all: in the ache of your dick, in the feel of Jake's fingers raking your hair, in the stretch of your throat as you push your lips all the way down to the base of Jake's cock and hold–

He pushes you away suddenly and you blink, more than a little dazed.

"Fuck, Dirk! Cheese and fucking crackers you are good way too good at that! Holy toledo!"

He's looking at you with stars in his eyes. You wipe your mouth on your arm and shrug.

And the tables are flipped again. He sits up, grabbing your face and kissing you hard, and you're quite pleased at his enthusiasm considering you just had his entire cock in your mouth.

"Oh, you drive me mad, mister Strider. If you could see the images I had bouncing around in my skull even from the first time I set my peepers on your heavenly visage."

Jake pulls once more at your shirt and finally removes it completely. He wastes no time, also frantically yanking off your pants and underwear in one fell swoop and you lift your ass and hiss as your own dick finally meets the open air.

He takes hold of it immediately, running his thumb over the tip and smearing wetness against the head. "Oh fuck," you choke, throwing your head back.

"Now this is a proper beauty," he says, while running his hand down your length. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, little friend."

"Please," you gasp out. "Don't talk to my dick."

He laughs. You swear, Jake's laugh will probably be the end of you. He laughs at anything and everything and it somehow will never be enough. You want to hear it every day, every second. Anytime you're not hearing him laugh, you want to be.

A rough fuck is definitely a good compromise, though.

He strokes you with a grip that's confident and unrelenting, and your hips buck into his fist.  

"You're a sight for sore eyes Dirk, did you know that? Please, I would love to see you come for me."

Jake pumps you quickly in an onslaught of sensation and you don't even have it in you to be embarrassed by your apparently nonexistent stamina before you're shuddering, back hitting repeatedly against the floor as you come all over his hand.

"Lovely," he coos. From your periphery you see him pull a handkerchief out of his discarded shorts and wipe his hand. "That was surely a contender for one of the seven wonders of the world."

Jesus. You don't even have the energy to tell him to stop. You just lay there panting, until he nudges you by the hips, and you get the message to roll over. He doesn't hesitate in lifting your hips so you're leaning forward on your knees, spreading your asscheeks with both hands and giving a low whistle.

"Now look at that pretty thing."

Your face is hot where you press it to the floor. You don't have the capacity to feel embarrassed while you're this exposed for him. You suck in a breath as you feel the traces of a finger circling around your hole. A blazing fire roars to life in your belly again. Oh fuck. Oh _fuck_.

Jake's hand vanishes. You hear the tell tale click of a bottle cap and then feel him press a wet finger to your hole.

You groan, wiggling your ass in the air like a needy slut. Fuck, you dont even care, you're so hot for him.

"The gates of heaven themselves couldn't look better," he says. You wish he would stop. But in contrast you also press your ass against him, pushing the finger deeper inside you, slick and hot.

He adds another and you both moan. "Wow," he whispers.

It feels so good. You want more of the feeling, more of the sweet burn of being stretched, further and faster. You whine and push back again, but he maintains a glacial pace with his fingers; gently pushing in and then pulling out again, torturously slow.

You would tear your hair out, if that wasn't absolutely crazy.

"Jake," you whine.

"What was that," he says? He twists his fingers inside you slowly, stretching your hole the other way and you keen.

"Please!"

"You know how much I love your words, Dirk. Is that all you have to say?"

You groan. "Just fuck me, you verbose asshole!"

And then he grabs you by your hips, hard. The next thing you feel is the wide tip of his cock pushing into you, slowly but insistently, easing in all the way until his hips are flush with your ass.

Everything stills. You're panting. A long, guttural moan escapes your lips as Jake pulls out, eternally slowly. The hot slide of him against your skin is addictive.

"Fuck, _Jake_ …"

He increases the tempo fractionally. "Dirk, you feel like silk, hand crafted by the finest tradesmen money can buy–"

"Please… no Shakespeare… bullshit, just… mmmph… fuck me," you grit out between his movements.

"As you wish," he says, and pushes back in quickly.

It's white hot, the tug and the pull of him, his hands gripping onto your hips and your knees digging into the floor as he starts to slam his hips into you. His thrusts go further and deeper as he lets out little sighs and moans of your name, and you bury your face into the crook of your arm and just lose yourself in the ecstasy of it, of being stretched and taken again and again by Jake.

By the same Jake you didn't know three weeks ago, who is now balls deep in your ass. You couldn't be happier.

Fuck. He puts one hand on your back, sliding it up the knobs of your spine and into your hair and you feel the heat of his body as he bends over and starts to really fuck into you properly.

Your head jerks back and you squeal. He's ramming head on into your prostate and your toes curl into the euphoria, again and again as you feel the spring tightening in your gut and now you absolutely need to touch yourself because if you don't you'll literally die.

"Fuck!" You wrench one hand down toward your body, anchored still by your head in your other arm and Jake's fingers in your hair, and make quick work of yourself, stroking fast and rough.  

"Dirk–my wondrous, beautiful chrome knight," Jake is babbling as he starts to lose himself and you can feel it when his hips stutter, hear the sharp gasp he makes as he spills hotly inside you.

You cry out and your body jerks, the onslaught finally reaching its peak. Starbursts erupt behind your eyelids as you come onto the carpet below you.

...Oops.

You are no longer able to keep your body up, and you both slowly melt to the floor, panting.

You end up lying on your side, making sure to give the mess a wide berth. Jake becomes the big spoon, his dick still inside of you.

"Jiminy Cricket, Dirk. You sure are something, did you know that?"

He runs a finger up your neck and traces around, teasing through the hairs that line the nape. It's soothing, a gentle contrast to most of the events that have taken place this evening.

"Mmmm," you say thoughtlessly. There's no shame in it, between the WWE showdown and the major pounding you just got, you are absolutely destroyed.

But there's a contentment settling in your bones, made up of the letter tiles you can feel pressing into the side of your ass, the sting of a definitely bruised shoulder, and the soft breaths of Jake English that ghost over the back of your neck.

It's nice. You could get used to this.

 

* * *

 

You cringe at the loss when Jake slides wetly out of you. Pointedly trying to ignore the urge to do something to clean up, you instead turn onto your back so that you're faced with a view of the speckled ceiling.

Jake turns over too.

"So," you say.

"So indeed," he says.

"Sorry about the rug."

"Don't you worry your pretty skull about that. Anything worth doing is worth the mess."

You can't see him, but you just know he's grinning.

"Yeah," you agree. "It sure was something."

"That's one word for it. Another word might be delightful. A splendor. An oasis–"

"–No, for the love of god, will you shut up!" You're feeling more than a bit tired. Visions of steamy showers and pillow topped mattresses inundate your mind.

"Not a star crossed chance in the world," Jake says with a quiet chuckle.

You reach your hand out above you blindly, feeling around the floor until you find what you are looking for.

"Well then," you say, turning around to face him, "All I can say is that you asked for the consequences." And then your raise your arm and throw the Scrabble tile at him. Since you're at point blank range, it hits him square in the face and he gasps, lifting both hands to cover his nose.

"You scallywag, how dare you!"

You return your back to the rug. "I warned you about your dumb fuck words."

"You fiendish thing! Well, I hope you won't go crying home when you're served your retribution in just."

"Hmm, sure thing," you say, eyes slipping closed as your mind starts drifting back into sleepytime thoughts. That's about when you feel a tile hit you in the cheek, just below the eye.

You're suddenly very awake. "What the fuck, English. Not cool!"

You jerk around and push him in the shoulder and he laughs. You try and fail to suppress your own smile.

As you start to lift yourself up, scanning the ground for another tile to throw at him, you can see Jake readying his body too. As if you both hadn't just wrecked yourselves beyond belief.

And yet you've never felt more energized.

There's a giddiness wafting through you and it's stamped all over with the name Jake English.

The man who wants you. The man who basically asked you out through a fucking iPhone app of all things.

It's so dumb.

And as you brace yourself on your knees, gathering up your ludicrous, pointy ammo for the world's most inconvenient battle, you realize that you wouldn't want it any other way.

Thank god for Words with Friends.

**Author's Note:**

> pls dont think too long about the scrabble game and then call me out on it not making sense


End file.
